DeWitt Clinton

The very institutions designed to protect justice and uphold civil society instead moved to shield the guilty parties and obstruct the truth.

DeWitt Clinton, then Governor of New York, former U.S.

Senator, and High Priest of the General Grand Chapter of the United States, was amongst the most powerful Masons in the country.

He had, at one point, presided over both the state government and the most influential Masonic organization in America.

Never did a single encouraging remark, a bright hope, a warm wish, cross my path.

Governor DeWitt Clinton, pushing through the construction of the Erie Canal, which was so important a factor in the early upbuilding of the country, was hooted with cries of Clinton's big ditch and Clinton's folly.

Alaska, which has paid for itself so many hundred times over, was derisively referred to as Seward's icebox when that courageous statesman negotiated for its purchase from Russia.

Remember this if you would accomplish anything worthwhile.

Which should the president support? Gallatin, whose father-in-law was prominent in the politics of the state, was inclined to favor Burr and his followers.

But the president already felt a deep distrust of Burr, and finally surrendered to the importunities of DeWitt Clinton, who had formed an alliance with the Livingston interest to drive Burr from the party.

Despite the pettiness of the game which disgusted both Gallatin and Jefferson, the decision was fateful.

It was no light matter, even for the chief magistrate, to offend Aaron Burr.

Nor was the president without enemies in his own political household.

The Republicans of New York, always lukewarm in their support of the Virginia dynasty, were now bent upon preventing his re-election.

They found a shrewd and not over-scrupulous leader in DeWitt Clinton and an adroit campaign manager in Martin Van Buren.

Both belonged to that school of New York politicians of which Burr had been master.

Okay.

An aspiring writer and a part-time shoe salesman, Finger joined Bob Kane's nascent studio in 1938 after having met Kane, a fellow DeWitt Clinton alumnus.

Finger graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx in 1933.

They met at a party.

Kane later offered him a job ghostwriting the strips Rusty and Clip Carson.

This resulted in an attempt to break down the barrier of the Alleghenies by internal improvements.

The movement became especially active after the War of 1812, when New York carried out DeWitt Clinton's vast conception of making, by the Erie Canal, a Greater Hudson, which should drain to the Port of New York all the basin of the Great Lakes, and by means of other canals even divert the traffic from the tributaries of the Mississippi.

New York City's commercial ascendancy dates from this connection with interior New York and the Mississippi Valley.

A writer in Hunt's Merchants Magazine in 1869 makes the significance of this clearer by these words, quote, There was a period in the history of the seaboard cities when there was no west, and when the Allegheny Mountains formed the frontier of settlement and agricultural production.

Sectional rivalry likewise saw that the balance of power possessed by the interior furnished an opportunity for combinations.

This was a fundamental feature of Calhoun's policy when he urged the seaboard south to complete a railroad system to tap the northwest.

As Washington had hoped to make Western trade seek its outlet in Virginia and build up the industrial power of the Old Dominion by enriching intercourse with the Mississippi Valley, as Monroe wished to bind the West to Virginia's political interests, and as DeWitt Clinton wished to attach it to New York, so Calhoun and Hayne would make, quote, Georgia and Carolina the commercial center of the Union and the two most powerful and influential members of the Confederacy, end of quote, by draining the Mississippi Valley to their ports.

I believe, said Calhoun, that the success of a connection of the West is of the last importance to us politically and commercially.

I cannot forbear recommending for your perusal a book not very long since published in the city of New York, entitled A Catholic Question in America.

You will there find what respect was paid to that venerable institution, sacramental confession, by a Protestant court of justice at which presided the Honorable DeWitt Clinton.

The Reverend Dr. Coleman, a Catholic priest in the city of New York, was by that sacrament an instrument of restoring stolen property to its owner.

Certain persons had been previously arrested on suspicion, and a prosecution instituted against them, and Dr. Coleman, after restoring the stolen property to its owner, was summoned to give an evidence and required to disclose the person or persons from whom he had received it.

In eighteen twenty-five, when but ten years of age, he feasted his eyes upon Lafayette during the latter's celebrated visit to the United States, and to the last declared that he had a vivid recollection of the lineaments of that distinguished personage.

Lewis Cass, De Witt Clinton, and other celebrities of his youth he also saw and heard at Lockport, while the presence in the village, on various occasions, of the noted Seneca chiefs, Tommy, Jimmy, Major Henry O'Beal, and others were to the young enthusiast in border history like visitations from a realm of fancy.

Lafayette was the subject of young Draper's first school composition.

His earliest article for the press, published in the Rochester Gem for April 6, 1833, was a sketch of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the last of the signers.

In 1825, when but ten years of age, he feasted his eyes upon Lafayette during the latter's celebrated visit to the United States, and to the last declared that he had a vivid recollection of the lineaments of that distinguished personage.

Lewis Cass, DeWitt Clinton, and other celebrities of his youth he also saw and heard at Lockport, while the presence in the village, on various occasions, of the noted Seneca chiefs Tommy Jimmy, Major Henry O'Bail, and others were to the young enthusiast in border history like visitations from a realm of fancy.

Lafayette was the subject of young Draper's first school composition.

His earliest article for the press, published in the Rochester Gem for April 6, 1833, was a sketch of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the last of the signers.

In the strife of North and South on slave laws, Henry Clay made more than one great speech to try and keep the peace.

DeWitt Clinton, who in 1812 had run for president against Madison, was one of the great men of his age.

He was chief of the state of New York and took great thought on the Erie Canal and did much to make it a thing of fact.

It was a great thing for the whole Union when the boats found they could reach the ocean through the state.